Letters to the Editor — February 20, 2014

The funding for our Number 6 COAST bus, running from Farmington to Rochester, is to be cut unless people protest and vote at the Wednesday, March 12 town meeting being held in the Town Hall at 7 p.m.

This bus is the only transportation that Farmington people have to get to work or food or doctors. I am in a wheelchair and don’t walk, and this bus gets me to doctors and appointments I would otherwise be unable to get to. The buses have a lift that makes it possible for me to get my prescriptions, food and other necessary items for life. It is my way out of my home.

Also if people who use it for work are unable to get there, the town will be paying them welfare to live. How will that be saving money? Please help us save our buses. COAST bus is a non profit organization, so the town’s objections that they raised their rates should not be a valid argument. The funding is also met with a matching amount from the government to help those of us that are old, crippled and poor, or just without wheels.

Please help our plea. We are in need of our buses

Heather E. Branch

Farmington

To the Editor:

While the physical building of a library provides many tangible benefits and services to its community, it also acts as a powerful symbol of the community’s priorities. Ideas are what libraries contain and also what they help to spread. By funding and maintaining a library a community declares that it values education and wishes to support an informed, creative population.

The Milton Free Public Library has prided itself in being just such a symbol for many years. For the last eight years a shining example of this support is the Fan Fiction Contest. Started as a joint project between the English Department of Nute High School and the Milton Free Public Library director, the first contest attracted a mere handful of students. Over the years the contest has gained in popularity and, in total, has garnered over a 100 entries.

Last year the contest expanded to include the Nute Middle School. Each year the quality of the writing has improved and the judges are delighted to find it hard to chose winners from amongst such a fine array of entries. Young people in Milton are directly benefiting from skills they are building as a result of this contest as well as all the other services the library provides.

I hope you will join me in supporting the library by voting “Yes” on Warrant Article 25.

Jessie Crockett

Milton Mills

To the Editor,

Upon reading the letter in the Feb. 13 issue from Sue O’Connor, regarding the bill to terminate the Common Core (HB1508):

It is clear that Ms O’Connor is a caring grandmother who does care about the education of her children. It is also clear that she chooses to believe the misinformation that is being propagated by those groups who would like to tear down our public education system. If Ms O’Connor, and those who spread the same misinformation as she does, such as the group of House Legislators, including Farmington’s own Representative Pitre, who also happens to be on the Farmington School Board, were only open to the facts, I think they would see things differently.

I am not blaming Ms O’Connor here. She is innocent in that she most likely just didn’t check her facts. But I do lay most of the blame on people who should be more educated, such as Rep. Pitre. As a School Board member and member of the House Education Committee, Rep Pitre should know better than to spread misinformation and fear of the Common Core without actually checking to see if what he is spreading is true. The result of spreading such falsehoods is letters from caring folk like Ms. O’Connor, who believes she is acting in the best interest of her grandchildren, when in fact, she is working to undermine their education.

In Ms. O’Connor’s letter, there are at least 14 different points made that cannot be corroborated with facts, because they are not true. I won’t waste the readers time with repeating the lies being spread, but I will try to give you the facts, which, incidentally, can be corroborated by a little research.

First, the Common Core are not federally mandated standards. Their development was overseen by a steering committee that came from many states and included educators, educational reformers, business leaders, school teachers, and community minded citizens, who saw the need to build a coherent set of standards that states could adopt, if they so chose, that would improve the education of our children. Once completed, they were so good that 45 states independently adopted them.

The federal government never required the adoption of Common Core State Standards in order to receive funding or a waiver from NCLB. They did require that states have or adopt high quality standards. It just so happens that since most states have adopted Common Core, it seems like the feds required them.

The CCSS are also not curriculum standards. Teachers will not lose their ability to teach their own content in their own way. Rather, because the CCSS are performance standards, rather than content standards, they actually give teachers more freedom to develop their own lessons and activities that build the learning required for students to perform. People who are opposed to Common Core should review the standards and select those individual standards to which they are opposed and explain why the opposition. Nothing in the Common Core Standards is unnecessary for children to learn.

Accountability for teaching is not part of the Common Core. They are only standards that point to what students should know or be able to do. Accountability comes from state law and is no better or worse under the CCSS than under previous standards. New Hampshire has always had standards. While we never had standards in common with 45 states, we currently have standards in common with some of our neighboring New England States in form of New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP).

Likewise CCSS do not require high stakes testing. That is a federal requirement under No Child Left Behind. So those that are opposed to high stakes testing should push for Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and remove the heavy requirement on standardized testing, if that is what they believe.

Finally, Ms O’Connor pines for the “other path” which “cherishes individual talents, cultivates creativity, celebrates diversity, and inspires curiosity.” I could not agree with her more. And if she were to review the philosophy behind the CCSS, she would find that Common Core Standards do exactly that. They allow for multiple pathways to learning, promote evidence based decision making and problem solving, effective communication and collaboration, and the abilities to demonstrate understanding and information fluency.

So by all means, write your legislators about HB 1508. And do tell them that you want to keep our high quality educational standards in New Hampshire. But if that’s what you believe, you have to tell them to vote against HB1508. And come election day, vote those who would undermine our public education system out of office. Their misinformation and fear mongering have got to stop.

For more information on the Common Core in New Hampshire, visit Advancing New Hampshire Public Education at www.anhpe.org.

Stan Freeda

Farmington

To the Editor:

The Olympics I have begun to watch this night, I already hear of citizenship, ideology, and politics.

Now I ask non-rhetorically, when will the people of the earth stand as one and say, “We will respect every human to be who they are and what they can be?”

Amen

Michael Lecorn

Rochester

To the Editor:

The Rochester School Department‘s Families in Transition Office coordinates assistance to students and their families who are in transitional living situations. This includes families with school-aged children and unaccompanied youth who are homeless, living in shelters, motels, “couch surfing” or temporarily staying with other family members or friends due to economic hardship.

New England winters and the holidays are especially hard for students and their families who are without permanent housing. Donations that we often receive help provide necessities for our homeless children, youth and families.

The past holiday season brought a remarkable display of Rochester’s compassion and generosity. The unsolicited outpouring of donations of food, clothing, winter outerwear, gift cards, personal care items and toys helped make holidays brighter and life a little easier for the under-resourced children and youth in our community.

On behalf of the students and families served, please accept our deep gratitude and appreciation of your thoughtfulness and giving. In particular the Families in Transition Office would like to acknowledge the following for their incredible generosity: Eastern Propane, the Rochester YMCA, Profile Bank, Spaulding High School’s Latin and Health Occupation Clubs, Journey Church, Holy Rosary Credit Union, the Tara Knitters, Liberty Mutual, First United Methodist Church and private donors who wished to remain anonymous.